Can the meaning of ‘C caused E’ be accounted for in terms of the idea that if C hadn’t happened, E

wouldn’t have happened?

Pros:

 The cause makes a difference as to whether the effect happens, or not.

 It’s an intuitive characteristic of causal relationships. We regularly think of this being the case.
 Can account for causation by omission by picking the closest possible world.

Additions

 Y could have happened without X due to another cause but we add ‘in the circumstances’ (Mackie)
or in a world similar to this (Stalnaker, Lewis)
 Ned Hall – Two Concepts of Causation

Issues:

 Non-local – focuses on what happens outside of the interaction. (As opposed to causal process
accounts.)
 Cases of over-determination – man goes into the desert (Mackie Cement pg 44 adapted from
McLaughlin 1925 “Proximate Cause”). But – is this a problem? To what extent does this offer an
example of causation? BUT Firing Squad – two bullets into the heart. To what extent was the one
shooter the cause of the death? We would not say that the one shooter was a cause of the death.
 Transitivity – Lewis causal chain
 It cannot be used alone – if we have a causal theory and that just means if C didn’t happen, E
wouldn’t have then it is difficult to see how we can tell. Practical methods (reducing to regularity
thesis). Lewis’ possible worlds (hard to see how we can know).
 Conditionals – e.g. oxygen in the air. Two ways of being context sensitive (occurrence and enquiry –
Hart and Honore). Mackie – Bundles of causes (and inus -an insufficient but nonredundant part of an
unnecessary but sufficient condition for E)
 Preemption – Late preemption – Suzy and Billy throwing rocks (Hall 2004). Response – events at
different times so different events. Problem – Lewis’ poison on a full stomach. Eating dinner is a
cause of death. New Lewis – altering one event makes more of a difference to the effect than
altering the other. (answers to trumping)
 There are examples of counterfactual dependence which aren’t examples of causal dependence

Non-local – Immediately alarm bells

There’s a reason why we see some counterfactuals as causal and others not.

No more than a useful way of looking at things

It cannot be used alone – if we have a causal theory and that just means if C didn’t happen, E wouldn’t
have then it is difficult to see how we can tell. Practical methods (reducing to regularity thesis). Lewis’
possible worlds (hard to see how we can know).